Viewers in the driving seat

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From 2006’s focus on documentary filmmaking to last year’s youthful and rebellious spirit, curators’ and programmers’ proclivities have determined the form of previous Taipei Golden Horse Film Festivals (台北金馬影展). Not this year: The festival’s lineup of 145 films was designed to please moviegoers of all ages and interests.

“In recent years, we have seen the international film festival circuit become geared towards a more commercial form of cinema that treats the audience as the principal element ... Golden Horse picks up on this trend by focusing on audiences rather than a few curators,” said festival program director Patrick Jia (嘉世強).

This viewer-friendly approach is reflected in the choices for this year’s retrospective program. One notable addition, though less recognized on the international stage than Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, is revered Japanese director Kon Ichikawa. From his chilling anti-war film Fires on the Plain and the Cannes-winning Odd Obsession about lust and sexuality, to detective thriller The Inugami Family and The Makioka Sisters, an exquisitely produced family drama based on Junichiro Tanizaki’s novel of the same title, Ichikawa has a proven ability to roam from genre to genre.

Another prominent contributor on this year’s rosta is Jean-Pierre Melville. Similar to Ichikawa in that they were both influential figures appreciated by critics and audiences alike, Melville was regarded as a major influence on the French New Wave and best remembered for his film noir Le Samurai that gave Alain Delon his immortal onscreen role as a tragic heroic hitman.

Golden Horse has put together an admirably extensive retrospective program on the French maestro that will screen 10 of the 14 films Melville made as well as the French documentary Code Name: Melville, which will receive its world premiere at the festival, and The Killer (喋血雙雄) by John Woo (吳宇森), who cites Melville’s work as the chief inspiration for his gangster flicks.

To help festivalgoers navigate through the lineup, the films have been organized into more than 12 thematic sections.

In the Non-Fictional Cinema category, the combination of big-name directors and popular subject matter is expected to draw big audiences. Shine a Light documents the musical union of Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones, Encounters at the End of the World is Werner Herzog’s latest installment in his ongoing search for ultimate beauty and a strong contender for next year’s Academy Awards, and Man on Wire is a highly stylish and cinematic memoir of Frenchman Philippe Petit’s 1974 adventure crossing between the twin towers in New York City on an illegally rigged wire.

Contrary to common belief, American independent productions are among the most difficult to come by at film festivals as they rely on distribution networks rather than the art-house circuit. To its credit, the Golden Horse’s Made in USA program will screen eight critically acclaimed independent films that are unlikely to go on general release in Taiwan. Among the most popular are Sean Penn’s Into the Wild and Lars and the Real Girl, which tells a wacky story about the love between a shy young man and his sex doll.

Three documentaries about the so-called “war on terror” critically assess US foreign policy. Focusing on the chaos that has engulfed Iraq is No End in Sight, while the Silver Berlin Bear-winning Standard Operating Procedure and Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side detail the torture and murder of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay and the systematic abrogation of human rights that links them.